Wonderful Tunes Provided By Friends. Wild Tangents Provided By Me.

John Lennon would have been 70 today. He was 27 in 1967 when he and Paul McCartney wrote “A Day In The Life.” They wrote the verses separately. Paul’s focused on memories of his school days and John’s focused on current news headlines. Rolling Stone Magazine ranks the song at number 26 on its list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.

This video is from 2009 Madison Square Garden concert celebrating Jeff Beck’s second induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. He closed the show with this fantastic number.

It is said that sharing shameful secrets is good for the soul. It is only by bringing the skeletons in our closets out into the bright light of day that we can see that they are not as horrible and scary as we may think and that we are still loved and lovable in spite of them. As a general rule I completely agree. Dirty little secrets can eat away at us needlessly and make us miserable. But occasionally there are secrets so horrible that we really do need to bury them down deep under dense, rocky mountains of shame and never ever share them under any circumstances. Here’s one of mine:

For several years after I saw the 1978 Bee Gees “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” movie, I loudly proclaimed to anyone who would listen that it was not only one of the finest movies ever made but also that the Frampton/Bee Gee remakes of Beatles songs were far superior to the original Beatles versions.

Okay, okay, but in my early adolescent defense there were serious hormonal forces at work on me at the time. I was 11 so I probably started puberty, the minute the opening credits started to roll. It’s a proven scientific fact that tweenage girls imprint just like newborn baby birds. At the onset of puberty, the adolescent female will develop a hopeless crush on the very first pop idol with tight pants and a great head of hair that crosses her path.

Of course Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees have large bodies of work of which they can be immensely proud. I am still a big fan but I’m sure we can all agree that the Sgt. Pepper movie probably wasn’t one of their best career moves. But, and here’s the really terrible part, even though I no longer think those songs are the best possible Beatles remakes, I do still like them. Yes I know, I’ll just pop out to the shed to fetch my shovel. I’m sure we’ll all be much more comfortable once I’ve got this secret deeply stowed under Shame Mountain once again!